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"There was never a happier couple than Dinnis O'Flaherty an' I the day the praste made us one. But, after a while, the wages got low, and the times were hard wid us. 'Polly, says Dinnis to me one day, 'will you be afther goin' to Ameriky wid me? 'Dinnis, says I, 'wherever it plases you to go its I, Polly McBrine, that's ready and willin' to follow. We sailed in the St.
But that's nothin'," he continued, with airy and pagan indifference; "we can arrange all that aisy enough. Love's stronger than religion any day. Ye know the owld song." And "His Majesty" trolled out one of his peculiar melodies: "There was a Ballyshannon spinster That fell in love wid a Prodes'an' min'ster; But the praste refused to publish the banns, So they both ran away to the Mussulmans."
"Sure, your honour, I went to the praste, and by good luck his house is in front of the church. I went into the church, and I crossed myself before the altar and said a prayer or two. As I did so who should come out of the vestry but the father himself. He waited until I had done and then came up to me, and to my surprise said in good Irish: "'So it's a Catholic you are, my man?
"An' what's this ye've been doing, child? Is it me own ears that have heard o' yer Bible-reading and railing at the praste? What's coom to ye now? Didn't I warn ye against their heretic ways? An' ye've been and fallen into the dape pit as aisy as a blind sheep. Och! for shame, Annorah Dillon! Why do ye not spake? What can ye say for yourself?"
Dick took out his pocket Bible to read his chapter with a glad feeling of security. He would never need to hide it from the Fowley's again. "Read it out, me boy, read it. There's good words in it, whatever the praste may say."
'Och, be the powers! he exclaimed 'it's nather a sword nor a pistol I want at all, but only a nate little bit of shillalab in my fist, to bate the thieves of the worruld, and scatter them like the praste scatters the divil wid holy water.
"I'm no good Catholic livin', but if it come to dyin', bedad I niver could face it without first confissin' to the praste, and that would give the game away. Let's cut out dyin', and cut corn!" "That's richt," agreed Dannie. "And let's work like men, and then fish fra a week or so, before ice and trapping time comes again. I'll wager I can beat ye the first row." "Bate!" scoffed Jimmy. "Bate!
"Yer riverence spakes thrue, to be shure," said Biddy; "but for all that, it will never be a bit o' use to thry to make a good Catholic o' Norah, now that she can read the big books and talk so bravely herself. An' it were to be the savin' o' her life, she would never confess to a praste again, or take the holy wafer from his hands.
It's a nation o' throuble I'd have with a pair o' ye at once; and ye're no earning money, Phelim, boy, to buy off the praste. Kape a still tongue, lad, an' ye bite it in two; an' don't go for to meddle wi' matters concerning yer sowl. The praste an' yer poor mother will kape a sharp look-out; an' it will go hard, shure, if between us ye are not saved at last."
"I don't want no pay," responded Jim. "An' what do ye know about the next world, anyway?" "The praste says there is one," said Mike. "The priest be hanged! What does he know about it?" "That's his business," said Mike. "It's not for the like o' me to answer for the praste." "Well, I wish he was here, in Number Nine, an' we'd see what we could git out of 'im. I've got to the eend o' my rope."
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